Read the two poems below and then answer the question that follows.
Poem 1: The Last Load
The car took less than I expected.
Nineteen years, and it fitted
in the boot and the back seat
with room to spare for the flask of tea
I did not want and could not refuse.
She stood in the doorway doing that thing
she does with her hands, the folding,
as though putting something away
that would not go flat.
I checked the straps twice
so I would not have to look up.
Then the lane, the turn, the long road,
and the house going small in the mirror
the way a word goes small
when you say it too many times.
I had thought leaving would be a door.
It is not a door. It is a road,
and the road keeps offering you
one more place to turn around,
and you keep not turning,
and that is how you know
that you have gone.
By Ellen Marsh (2011)
Poem 2: Moving Day
He said he’d take the bare essentials —
one case, one coat, one pair of boots.
He packed instead his whole credentials:
his medals, magazines and flutes.
His mother waved a tea-towel at him
as though to dry the drizzling air.
His father, who had not been chatty,
grew suddenly, alarmingly, aware.
The neighbours found a reason, roughly
every minute, to be at the gate.
The cat, consulted early, gruffly
declined to see him off, and ate.
And so he went, at ten past seven,
with far too much and not enough,
to be, at twenty-two, in heaven,
and ring on Sundays, sounding tough.
By Peter Hallam (1994)
Compare the ways the writers present journeys in Poem 1: The Last Load and Poem 2: Moving Day.
In your answer, you should compare:
the ideas in the poems
the poets’ use of language
the poets’ use of form and structure.
Use evidence from the poems to support your comparison.
[20 marks]
Was this exam question helpful?